Tomato prices in Nigeria have been steadily climbing for months, caused by unrest in northern and central states where the crop is grown and this has affected farmers’ ability to plant and harvest.
“We are facing tomato Armageddon,” Rose Ede told AFP in the Ikoyi district of the city. “I have never seen this situation before in my 36 years in existence.”
She never thought buying tomatoes for her busy Lagos restaurant would be an issue. But the rising cost is causing her a headache and affecting her customers’ favourite Nigerian dishes.
Making jollof rice, a beloved traditional dish in Nigeria, has suddenly become very expensive.
The culprit is a moth called Tuta absoluta, which has destroyed crops in the northern Kaduna state, forcing the local government to declare a state of emergency.
Tomatoes, one of its main ingredients and a staple of Nigerian cuisine, are going for $2 each at local markets, with wholesale baskets costing as much as N42,000, or $212, Kaduna state agriculture commissioner Manzo Daniel told AFP.
“It is a serious problem. The disease has affected production and consumption, prices are continuing to rise and there is no availability,” Shehu Sani, Senator for Kaduna Central, told CNN.
The area, which contributes strongly to Nigeria’s overall production, has already seen losses of millions of dollars, according to Sani.
“Many depend on tomato farming for their livelihood and tomatoes are an indispensable part of the diet. People cannot do without them,” he said.
In local towns, the problem has been labeled ‘Tomato Ebola.’
“People are panicking, because attaching that name to a staple food has worsened the situation,” said Sani.
Even those who can afford to buy find it difficult to trust any tomato product, and some have started buying imported tinned tomatoes.
“Nobody knows now which tomatoes are safe to eat and some people are avoiding them altogether.”
Fuel price increases and a fall in imports due to a foreign exchange shortage have contributed to the scarcity and now a major crop infestation has worsened the already bleak tomato outlook.
Many Nigerians have taken to Twitter to complain, with some re-posting photographs of the Tomatina festival in Spain, which every year hosts what is dubbed the world’s biggest food fight.
One user wrote of the pictures of revellers hurling tomatoes at one another and splashing in the fruit’s juice and pulp: “If only these guys know the price of tomatoes in Nigeria today.”
Another commented that tomatoes were “like gold now in Nigeria” while a third said three tomatoes she bought for 200 naira were more than expensive than a litre of fuel at 145 naira.
“Tomatoes is the new oil in Nigeria,” wrote a fourth.
